I seem to remember hearing somewhere that CC was a relatively average player in the discovery of the new world and that some dude wrote a novel about him in the 1700s and it was so popular that he became a hero

IDK why does he get his own holiday here in the U.S. when he didn't actually land on the mainland nor was he the first from accross the pond to land here?

Just more of America's mythical history like George Washington's "wooden teeth" or that he chopped down a cherry tree, or Besty Ross sewing the first American Flag.

"A well-wound coil is a well-wound coil regardless if it's wound with professional equipment, or if somebody's great-grandmother winds it to an old French recipe with Napoleon's modified coffee grinder and chops off the wire after a mile with an antique guillotine!" - Bill Lawrence

ye why does anybody feel the need to be that guy who talks about Christopher Columbus as if literally everybody doesn't already know like whatever who cares u edgy tryhard teen, as if any colonialist people from colonial times were any better, but then I'm not from the Americas so I can't speak for you people but it would be a nice day off i guess

I don't really care, I just wish I had the day off (I have plenty of vacation I just don't want to use it, ya know?) He was a bad dude, but an important historical figure and there's something to be said about exploration and all that, as I'm sure other nations have shady past figures who also probably had some conquest of import to their history.

Controversial opinion perhaps, but I don't know that changing Columbus Day to Indigenous people's day is going to magically solve the unfortunate circumstances many face. Plus, you know, a lot of indigenous cultures at the time weren't exactly models of a just society, either, by today's standards.

I seem to remember hearing somewhere that CC was a relatively average player in the discovery of the new world and that some dude wrote a novel about him in the 1700s and it was so popular that he became a hero

You may be right, but what CC has come to represent is shitty. Granted, we live in that "new world" and life is large...so LARGE.

I ain't got no job, my wife left mebills piling up,I got child-support payments.And I don't know if any of what I just saidis true. But I believe it.

I did a little research and turns out that the Columbus on a quest to prove the earth wasn't flat myth comes from an 1820 biography written by Washington Irving. Same guy that wrote Sleepy Hollow.

Columbus was already somewhat known before the novel. But it was such an entertaining novel that Columbus became a household name and turned into a hero. Columbus Day wasn't an official federal holiday until 1937, over 400 years after his death.

I don't even think about Christopher Columbus.I was just happy to have had the day off.Does anyone really care about Columbus? Maybe elementary schoolers who have to learn whitewashed history for every holiday...I guess that's bad.But even the anti-PC cultural conservative crybabies -- does Columbus really mean a lot to you?Change it -- why not?

(but maybe Christopher Columbus is important -- maybe he is the boogeyman that we can project our guilt onto -- our collective scapegoat -- after all, my ancestors are white europeans -- and what am I to do?)

I mean, there's nobody out there who thinks the things he did weren't abhorrent. The holiday is less about him and more about the discovery of this continent dem sales. IME, I hear most complaints about Columbus enslaving people, but there's some cognitive dissonance here 'cause George Washington owned slaves.

Sure, go ahead and do it, but I don't think it's of the utmost importance. Nobody's fooled into thinking we're celebrating an asshole who stumbled upon this continent by accident and did some horrendous things.